Yesterday Open Data Commons released a draft of a new attribution license specifically aimed at data and databases. We would warmly welcome feedback on the new draft, and help circulating it to relevant parties (including legal experts, prospective users and so on)!
From the announcement:
Open Data Commons are happy to announce the first draft of an attribution license for data/databases:
A commentable version of the text is available here:
Feedback is actively sought and we would be grateful for any assistance in circulating this announcement to relevant communities and networks.
The license is heavily based on the Open Database License (ODbL), though obviously without the share-alike provisions! With its simpler nature and its solid base from the ODbL, we don’t anticipate as much work as with the ODbL to get this to a 1.0.
The present plan is to start out with this first comments round based ending around the start of February. Based on the feedback received we will then assess how many further rounds of revision and consultation will be needed.
Some particular questions that it would be good to have feedback on:
- Is there any irrelevant matter that can be cut from the license (shorter is better!)
- Is attribution wanted for produced works (at the moment it is)
- What flexibility in attribution format/requirements should be supported
Background
The drafting of this license has been prompted by a clear need in several communities for an open license for data/databases that provides for attribution but does not impose share-alike requirements. Following discussion last Autumn on the public discuss list work was started on this draft attribution license.
Dr. Jonathan Gray is Lecturer in Critical Infrastructure Studies at the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London, where he is currently writing a book on data worlds. He is also Cofounder of the Public Data Lab; and Research Associate at the Digital Methods Initiative (University of Amsterdam) and the médialab (Sciences Po, Paris). More about his work can be found at jonathangray.org and he tweets at @jwyg.
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